441–450 of 511 posts
If this subject interests you, and you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
There is also a book called Infinite Jest that touches on this subject Its a breezy novella you can finish over a lunch break
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X is excellent for following niche research interests but they’ve been pushing quite hard to force political news/opinions into the feeds which is really annoying.
It's run by a guy who literally did a nazi salute. One of their most prolific users is named "catturd". I'm astonished that anybody in research or science still remains there. Edit to add: The owner of the platform contributed millions of dollars, endorsements, and manipulation of the platform to elect a regime which actively works to dismantle scientific and research funding and institutions. By continuing to use th…
Even more-so now that it's impossible to see a feed in chronological order without signing up. It's a site that's supposedly for keeping up with the state of the world, and yet it's got a big wall around it. Talk about mixed messages.
I believe in a way I hold myself to be partially responsible for allowing myself to consume cheap risk free passive interactions online.
I can only do my best in person to person interaction to make it as good individually for others and myself but it is always a hit and miss to have similar risk free or positive interactions in real life.
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25 years ago, my italian grandmother was the same way. No command center, but still wildly anti-immigration; probably stoked by the news. She immigrated as a child, technically naturalized twice (she was naturalized through her fathers naturalization, but married an italian citizen in Italy and renaturalized through his naturalization... because the citizenship of a married woman was determined by her husband's citiz…
I think people are pretty ignorant of what the rules are and what the situation on the ground is (just try shipping homeless people from LA to pick fruit on farms in the central valley and see what happens) On the other hand the "follow the rules" thing is pretty strong and you cannot fight it and win. I got pretty mad riding the subway in NYC paying the toll and seeing turnstile jumpers hold the emergency door open…
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I don't have the data to quantify it, but M-F, 6a-4p, maybe once an hour or so just to check the headlines. If I have comments, I might check my threads to see if I need to respond. On the Weekends, though, I might check it in the morning and again before bed just to see if anything interesting happened. But it isn't like YT (which is running in the background nearly 24/7) or Reddit, that I habbitually check. Those f…
Well just to offer another data point, I check HN far more often than any of the others. Many times a day. I consider it far more addictive - there's usually something interesting, and scanning is low investment. Youtube requires headphones and willingness to block out the world for 15+ minutes at a time. Facebook just doesn't have much interesting in it anymore since friends stopped posting. I feel like all of this…
TikTok is low-fat, high-sugar ultra processed "diet" food. HN is a fatty cut of steak with mushrooms and onions. Both are terrible for you everyday, multiple times a day, but one of them is arguably worse. But either one of them in moderation, is actually good for your soul lol.
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Sure, but deconstructing the platform to look at the engagement points is also useful. Some things that I think set HN apart in a good way: The lack of any kind of personalization whatsoever on Hacker News is a huge differentiator. There are no notifications, so if you want to find out if somebody replied to you, you've got to go check. Everybody's front page is exactly the same. There are no direct messages. There a…
> if you want to find out if somebody replied to you, you've got to go check. Let me spin this a different way: Because there are no notifications, HN users need to frequently come back and check. This is "positive random reinforcement" and is one of the most powerful mechanisms known for creating and maintaining addictive behavior. It's the same principle that slot machines and loot boxes use. > There are no direct…
I personally fall victim to this. On days I just browse the site I only refresh a few times a day or maybe just once in the afternoon. If I write a comment I constantly refresh and spend way more time reading the site. It's one of the most negative patterns for me on here.
> But don't confuse "great audience" for "better social technology".
I'd go further and say that this framing itself is a bit toxic. Nothing about the interests in this site make the audience "great" simply different and more relevant to you. There's an underlying "the nerds are better than the pleb normies" that suffuses this entire discussion that I find hilarious given how low the average comment accuracy is here for non tech things.
Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…
> HN is not social media in any normal sense of the word. The article's main claim is that traditional social media is not social media any more. That Facebook et al are now junk entertainment. So IMO HN hews much closer to the traditional role of social media than Facebook et al do.
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> HN is not social media in any normal sense of the word. The article's main claim is that traditional social media is not social media any more. That Facebook et al are now junk entertainment. So IMO HN hews much closer to the traditional role of social media than Facebook et al do.
That's what I took away from it, too. Facebook circa 2008 was great : your friends talked what were up to; everyone posted their pictures from that party last night; you didn't see anything from anyone who wasn't at most a second-degree connection. There were problems - people were jerks, and worse, and some people got pulled into chasing clout, and promoted bullshit - but they were human-scale problems, and you coul…
Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…
> And no, HN is not social media in any normal sense of the word. The pedantry involved in that comparison is extremely tiresome. This is claimed by users of Reddit regularly as well and I think most people here would consider Reddit to be a typical example of social media.
I've stopped using YouTube and Reddit since early April and it's been a mixed bag. On one side my interest level has adjusted so that normal activities make sense again - like sitting in the garden or playing a game with my kid. I've also completed dozens of projects like replacing old silicon in the entire kitchen or updating the garden playground. On the other side I'm feeling more isolated and lacking information…
I'm a big YouTube addict, but I dropped social media well before that was cool. I've felt quite disconnected from folks I knew, and I presume they feel like I've pulled away. Sounds like this is kind of similar, you end up feeling a bit disconnected? Doesn't sound all that bad, but I get what you mean - you feel isolated. I've learned incredible amounts of things with YouTube - I curate it like a madman, but overall…
I do have to resist watching all the product review videos which are essentially just ads.